New Year, new read? Take your pick from my 2017 #bookreviews

This is my journey in books for 2017!

Goodreads provides this nifty review of your reading year – last year they also made provision for sharing it to a blog with all their neat formatting. This year, one can share to Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest, but not to a blog 😦

Consequently, it doesn’t look at attractive, but hey ho, the content is the same, so here is my round up of my last year’s reading, along with my reviews.

To see the relevant review, just click on the cover.

TOTALS
I read 4,898 pages across 20 books

GENRES

Fantasy – 5 (1 x middle grade = 1 x dark fantasy)

Urban Fantasy – 5

Supernatural – 3

Romance – 2 (1 x historical)

Memoir – 1

Writing manual (fantasy/SF) – 1

SF – 1 (YA)

Murder/mystery (slightly comic) – 1

Cozy mystery – 1

SHORTEST BOOK

36 pages
Unicorn Magic
by Roz Marshall

LONGEST BOOK

716 pages
Dances of Deception
by J.C. Kang

AVERAGE LENGTH
233 pages

MOST POPULAR

(defined by how many people read it)

11,956 people also read

The Housewife Assassin’s Handbook
by Josie Brown

LEAST POPULAR

(defined by number of readers, not by quality)
3
people also read

Inspector Kirby and Harold Longcoat
by Ian Martyn

MY AVERAGE RATING FOR 2017

4.4

(Bear in mind I don’t post 1 or 2 star reviews, I either don’t finish the book or I contact the author directly)

HIGHEST RATED ON GOODREADS
The A-Zs of Worldbuilding: Building a Fictional World From Scratch
by Rebekah Loper

5* average

My first review of the year

4*

Libby is a mutant. She can change her appearance to match shadows, decor – and other people. Her talents are perfect for her life as a security expert, thief, and assassin. After all, how can you track down a criminal when you’ve no idea what they look like?
A brace of legitimate jobs draws her into an underworld of drug dealing, a place she feels out of her depth, forcing her to rely on backup when she normally operates alone. It helps enormously …more

MY 2017 BOOKS

Just click on the covers to go to the review for that book

My last review of the year

What a fun Christmas read! The small Florida township of Mayfair, named after it’s founding family, some of whom are still around, plans on dragging a few tourists away from nearby Disneyland with the wacky idea of building an ice skating rink for their Victorian Christmas Fair. Unfortunately work on the rink comes to an abrupt halt when a skeleton is uncovered on the site. How long has it been there? And is there any chance of identifying the mu …more

What a great, diverse list of books you read this year, Debby! I’m so glad I was in the mix! And I’ve been slacking, for sure. MUST find more reading time this year! It’s one of my main resolutions for 2018! Lovely, informative post. (Another resolution is to become more active on Goodreads. I was, before I started writing, and I need to work on improving my presence there. (Please send a few more hands and a many, many more hours in each day!) 😀

I second the request for more hours in the day!
I’ve enjoyed reading a few books in different genres, and there were a couple more than this that I didn’t rate, as I’m not keen on giving lower star ratings, plus one I’ve held over until next year as I didn’t have time to write the review. I’m quite pleased and surprised with how many I managed to get through! Lots of time in airports is the answer!!! I’m flying pretty much twice a month minimum now, so that’s how I utilise the otherwise time wasting hanging around, waiting.
Goodreads? Hm. I used to do a lot there, but saw no real return on my time investment, and the reviewers tend to be hyper critical and give lower stars, so I’ve backed off from the business angle, and just use it for posting reviews and for keeping up with a few interesting discussion threads.
I have quite a large following there, and I do always send invites when I have a sale or new release as it doesn’t take much time, and I get a little return, otherwise I leave it alone.

I had the same problems with Goodreads, and found many of the most vocal participants to be very unpleasant. (Not with ME, per se, but just in general, with lots of vitriol floating about). I’ve heard it’s better now, but I still doubt I would be super active. I do think I’m missing some opportunities to get my books out there, so I’m willing to at least take a look and see what I might feel comfortable with doing. If course, since my reading is down, so are my reviews, which would be the one thing I’d like to do more of, for sure.

Always something else to consider, eh? As for airports, I avoid flying like the plague. (I’m the female equivalent of John Lithgow on a white-knuckled flight . . . that one, sweating, moaning passenger, poised to yell, “We’re going DOOOOOWWWWWN! We’re all gonna DIIIIIIEEEE.”) So, maybe I could read in bus depots. But mostly, it’s doctors’ waiting rooms. 😀

Oh dear to the doctor’s waiting rooms, but I’m sure many people who fly regularly like me would be very happy at your reluctance to fly – I don’t think I’d be real happy to have you alongside me on a plane!
I once sat next to a guy who kept staring at one page of an open Quran the whole flight – believe me, I watched him like a hawk the whole time, convinced he was going to be a bomber, but I think he was just petrified!

OMG, that would have finished me for sure, Debby! Eeeeeek. Yeah, I used to be able to manage, back when I could take a water bottle, cleverly filled with (clear) Peach Schnapps, so I could take a sip whenever those panicky moments occurred. Now I can’t get away with that. 😦 Most of my problem is that I’m extremely claustrophobic, both in small spaces, and if there are too many bodies crowded into one area. (Times Square on New Year’s Eve, or Mardi Gras come to mind.) If I can’t move, or have no place to move TO, like on an airplane, I’m pretty unhappy.

I do fly now and then, because it’s the only way to get some places in a reasonable time. But it is an ordeal for me. I try to hide it from my fellow passengers, though, by sitting next to a window, and staring outside the entire time, pretending I’m not confined in a tiny little space. And also, to be sure the trees below aren’t suddenly growing bigger and bigger at a rate impossible to be normal. Hahahahaha.

This is one of the reasons I haven’t been to Scotland, yet. There are some things even the prospect of men in kilts aren’t worth. Hahahaha.